Friday, January 24, 2014

Kanyadan or giving daughter away, example of gender bias or a tradition?

There is a tradition, custom or ritual (or whatever label on want to give) of giving away the bride in Christian weddings, where father walks bride to groom, so it's like transfer from one home (father's) to another (husband's), similar ritual in Hindu marriages is Kanyadan (Kanya = daughter or girl, dan = donation, so literally it means donation of one's daughter), both are symbolic rituals where father gives away his daughter to a man to whom she is getting married. I have seen this ritual happening in most of the marriages which I attended, even they show this in movies (Indian movies and Hollywood both), the scenes are often very emotional, very few feel there is anything wrong in it (or there is any gender bias in these rituals), even during my marriage I witnessed this scene when my father-in-law and mother-in-law together did this ritual, donating their daughter to me, telling me symbolically that this (girl) was in our possession till today and from today it's your property (or responsibility), as a man (or husband) I need to take care of her. For most of us there is nothing offensive or objectionable in this entire process, after all this is just a symbolic ritual, our culture and tradition, going on for centuries [like Baptism, Mundan (shaving off head), thread ceremony, etc.] we need to respect it and follow it, but after carefully looking at this process I disagree with this tradition. One of my mentor and friend said to me after marriage of his daughter that while performing all those rituals as a father during the marriage ceremony he was feeling that his daughter is now going away from him or he is giving away his daughter, every ritual reminded him that now she belongs to some other family. This raised question in my mind, did my dad felt same or will my friend will feel the same during or after his son's marriage? I think answers is 'No', after all there is no ceremony called 'giving away the groom' or 'Putradan' (Putra = son) during marriage.

As I said the ceremony itself is very emotional and is performed at very important junction of life of people involved in this, marriage is very important and emotional event for all involved in it and no one likes to question this ritual during the marriage to spoil the the mood and atmosphere of the function. I can understand this hesitation, I my self never objected to it as long as I was not aware of gender discrimination aspect of this ritual, even after becoming aware of this aspect I never objected to this ceremony during any marriage for same reason (not to cause any disturbance) but just stopped attending this ritual as I don't agree with it. But I wonder how come as a society we never object to such rituals, we never see anything wrong with practicing them? Is it just because they are part of something emotional and romantic event like marriage? Or as a society we are still OK with some discriminatory rituals like this which indirectly give secondary status to females?

Some traditions like this might look harmless but they have deep impact on thinking and psyche of people, this is how husbands start thinking that wives are their property, no one tells them this, they just assume this from whatever is happening around them, it happened to me, it happens with so many men and women, they just become part of this patriarchal system without even knowing it. That is why I feel we need to question any ritual, any custom or any tradition like this, if these things are really needed, are important and unbiased then I have no doubt that they will survive. I have no idea what will happen during marriage of my daughter, I have duty and obligation to stand for my beliefs and will do what I believe is right but at the same time I don't force my ideas on anyone, she will be free to choose what path she like. I can always register my protest and opposition but I also know that change will be slow and will require lot of persistent efforts, I know that I can't change things overnight but that doesn't mean I stop trying. Another reason people give me for not opposing such rituals is that they don't want to hurt their parents or elders by opposing or questioning these traditions and rituals, they claim that as their parents are so touchy or emotional about these rituals they do these things just to make them happy. This is very noble thought, I don't think anyone willingly wants to hurt their parents, this is always the last option, but may times situation demands some action, one needs to take a stand. Sometimes it's not possible to bring the desired change without hurting someone's feelings, and many people are OK with this but they also think that it should not happen in my home, with my parents or my kids, so they want the change to come but don't want to struggle or suffer to bring it, it's like they want to save their country from enemy but my kids are not going to fight in war someone else's kid should do it because life of their own kids is too precious to waste, their parents are too sensitive to hurt their feelings, but this is not how change will come, this is not how we can bring social reforms or save the nation, this is rather a hypocrisy. I believe in Gandhi's sentence 'You must be the change you wish to see in the world' whoever understands meaning of this sentence for them I think this post will make some sense for all others it might sound offensive, anti-tradition or anti-religion.

2 comments:

Very nicely expressed thoughts ! And I absolutely agree to each word of it. But as you mentioned, have always found it very difficult to oppose to it, just due to the fear that even my closest ones are so much in agreement of this tradition.This ritual for sure has no harm associated to it, if taken just as a ritual, but when it starts to govern minds, girls are the one who are treated as a property....who in turn starts treating the husbands family as her own. I doubt if the boys ever get that feeling about the girl's family.

Thanks a lot Neha for sharing your views on this topic. I agree with you that many times it's very difficult to oppose such traditions because many people from our own family see nothing wrong in practicing it but these traditions unknowingly condition many people's minds and they develop certain type of attitude towards particular gender or social group (casteism), that's why we need to oppose them. I also like other point which you raised about husband not treating his wife's family like his own, I think I myself have to improve in this area as I have very limited interaction with my wife's family compared to my own (actually both are my own families now but social norms make this distinction very clear, that's why I used terms like my own family and my wife's family), thanks a lot for pointing this out.